


Perfect Flaws

by Jaelijn



Series: A Heart to Hold [4]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Asexual Avon, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Definite spoilers for Countdown, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Season/Series 02, and though it's set before it Rumours of Death, past torture is referenced, the federation is evil, you'll know why if you've seen them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7840369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was lunacy to go after Avon in the wake of the thunderstorm that had just rattled the flight deck, even Blake had seemed to realise that and had remained sulking on the couch. Madness, insanity, ill-advised, downright suicidal, that’s what it was. Vila should turn back while he still could.</i>
</p><p>Avon argues with Blake, and Vila is left dealing with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Flaws

**Author's Note:**

> Another one of my asexual!Avon series! This one's been sitting on my harddrive for a bit, but I think I like where it is now. 
> 
> No remarks this time in relation to sexual themes - though if you wanted to know about Avon and Vila's first kiss, there is something for you in here. There is a also brief reference to sex near the very end of the fic.  
> However, a quick word of caution that I refer to the Federation's _very_ questionable treatment of prisoners / interrogation techniques in here - there is no graphic detail, but there is more than a general reference - and there are allusions to suicidal ideation, which shouldn't surprise you if you've seen "Countdown".  
>  The fic also feature the recurrence of my Avon-is-originally-from-Io headcanon. 
> 
> As always, the title is inspired by [Poets of the Fall](http://poetsofthefall.com/) lyrics.

People like Avon, Vila mused, you had to be able to read, and read well, or you were living dangerously indeed. Oh, they liked to think of themselves as inscrutable, but experience had taught Vila better – being inscrutable was just another way of expressing things, as clearly as if you were saying them outright. Well, he wasn’t always entirely sure what Avon was expressing, but he could have a fair guess, and most importantly, he could read Avon’s posture when it meant _back off / back down / leave me alone_. Blake, Vila was sure, could read it too, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on him. Sometimes, perhaps, Blake was right and Avon was only doing it to issue a challenge, but that was like the quips he traded with Vila. Blake didn’t seem to notice when their arguments moved from force of habit to serious. Admittedly, Blake rarely was the one to make the move and Avon could be very subtle about it, but Vila was getting a little tired of having to draw Avon’s fire when Blake was too caught up in his idealism to notice that Avon was getting genuinely angry, or upset, or even, once in a while, actually concerned for Blake’s wellbeing. Not that Avon would ever admit to that. And Blake… Blake really should be making it easier to trust him. _One of these days_ , Vila thought darkly as he trudged down the corridor, _the two of them are going to kill each other_.

It was lunacy to go after Avon in the wake of the thunderstorm that had just rattled the flight deck, even Blake had seemed to realise that and had remained sulking on the couch. Madness, insanity, ill-advised, downright suicidal, that’s what it was. Vila should turn back while he still could.

Fool that he liked everyone to think he was, Vila didn’t.

There were only a handful of places Avon could be found after fighting with Blake. He rarely, if ever, went back to his cabin – it was the first place Blake would come looking for him. Vila had been down there anyway, picking the lock and having a quick look around just to make sure – he’d wanted snatch a quick snack from his own cabin next door anyway. The second place was the central computer control, where Avon often spent what free time he had if he wasn’t tinkering on the flight deck. Vila had found him down there in the middle of what counted for the ship’s night more often than not, rewiring systems just to see what would happen. However, the computer control room was just as deserted as Avon’s cabin when Vila stuck his head through the doorway – just the normal, impersonal hum, blinking lights and stuffiness generated by the computer banks, no Avon.

The third place, ironically, was the recreation room – or what they had designated the recreation room because it was large enough to house a dining area and lounge chairs for all of them. Who knew whether the System even needed recreation. There was often someone in there, but the threat of company made it unlikely that Blake would be expecting Avon there, and therefore it was the ideal hiding place after one of their arguments – so long as they continued to ruin Blake’s appetite, anyway. Cally was on her rest period, and Vila thought that Avon might not mind much running into her – Cally was a _listener_ , she knew when to leave people to themselves. When Vila pushed open the door to the rec room, he found Cally engrossed in a digital reader, but no Avon. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Vila?” Cally lowered her reader. “Is something the matter?”

“No, everything’s all right. I’m just looking for Avon. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

A slight frown appeared on Cally’s forehead. “I haven’t. Perhaps he is working in the computer room?”

Vila nodded, and started backing out of the room. “I’ll check there. Let me know if you see him in the meantime?”

“I will.”

 No need to worry Cally with the fact that Avon and Blake had been at each other’s throats again and that Vila had already checked the computer room. His options for plausible locations to find Avon on the _Liberator_ were now down to one – and that didn’t bode well at all. From Vila’s experience, Avon only went there when he was feeling genuinely upset. If he was just angry at Blake, more often than not it was the computer room, where he would jab his laser probe savagely at things, and the auto-repair could barely keep up. Fed-up or frustrated, the rec room or, more rarely, his own cabin. Down _there_ – only when he was hurt and refusing to admit it. Or, at least, refusing to let anyone else see.

Vila thought back to the fight he had witnessed on the flight deck, and couldn’t think of anything that could have done it. Avon had been going off at Blake for agreeing to help a cell of rebels on some outer planet without consulting Orac or the rest of the crew, and Blake had been refusing to consider any possibility that it was a trap, arguing that he remembered the people… Avon had said something nasty about Blake’s memory, and Blake had attempted to compromise and agreed to ask Orac if he’d picked up any Federation communiques – and somehow that had led to Blake sulking and Avon leaving the flight deck, with no one really the victor. It left Vila with no idea what had been said that Avon would be upset about. After all, this wasn’t the first time Blake hadn’t consulted them, and Vila couldn’t remember any of the previous occasions causing anything but anger. Not that an angry Avon wasn’t bad enough already.

He’d need to tread very carefully – figuratively, of course. Vila had a light step, but the section of the _Liberator_ he was heading to only had the most practical of floor and wall-coverings, and all footfalls echoes fearfully in the corridors. They had discovered the corridor in the first week on the _Liberator_ , when they were trying to find the way to the drive unit maintenance access. Vila had been trudging behind Avon, not really fancying the work but fascinated by the new environment and wanting the company, as they had wound their way down into the bowels of the ship. They had stood there for some minutes in awed silence when they had first rounded the corner and seen it.

The corridor was a dead end as far as corridors went, terminating in an access panel to the maintenance shafts Vila had since explored at his leisure – always good to know one’s way around the crawlspace and hidey-holes. But the really impressive feature had been the wall along the corridor. It was covered in a seamless screen that showed constant live footage of space. It wasn’t a window, though Vila always thought it would be neat if the _Liberator_ had actual windows, but it was still breath-taking. Along the opposite wall was a bench stretching the length of the corridor – clearly, it had been a viewing space, perhaps it was a spot where malfunctions of the ship’s engine could be observed – Avon hadn’t been able to say when they had first discovered it. Perhaps he had a better idea now, but Vila had never asked. The point was, it wasn’t made out to be a recreational area. The corridors down there tended to be a touch too cold for comfort and unimpressive in design, not like the flight deck and the section that held their cabins. Even the bench was sheer metal alloy, no padding at all. Vila knew that by now a few pillows had made their way down – he had taken some, and some had just been there one day, so he assumed Avon had had the same idea. They didn’t really need more than one pillow each, since none of the others seemed to ever go to that section, but it made the bench look more comfortable. More colourful, certainly, in the dull grey of the corridor and the frequently dark expanse of space showing on the screen. There was a little niche in the wall nearly opposite the centre of the screen where Vila had put a little bottle of soma, two glasses and a blanket, and he had found a reader and some datacubes in it as well when he’d last been down – Avon’s, of course, and Vila hadn’t quite dared touch them. They might be harmless literature, or they might be personal. Vila hadn’t wanted to find out the wrong way.

 _Of course_ Avon was there, leaning back against a pillow with his arms folded across his chest and staring out at the stars. There was no emotion visible on his face, but Vila’s echoing steps would have announced him long before he’d been able to see Avon, and given the other man plenty of time to compose himself.

“What is it now, Vila?” Avon asked, his quiet voice carrying well in the empty corridor. He hadn’t told Vila to go away, which Vila took as a good sign.

He approached, pulling two pillows from the pile for himself, and settled down near Avon, who was sitting just by their little niche of supplies. One of the pillows Vila stuffed behind his head, then looked out at the stars. “Marvellous, eh?”

“What is?” Avon asked, sounding decidedly uninterested, but he had yet to protest Vila’s company. Vila didn’t think the protest would be coming, as long as he didn’t cross any lines.

“Space, of course.” Vila had only been off Earth once before he’d been sentenced to spend the rest of his days on Cygnus Alpha – and only because he’d snuck onto a pleasure cruise of the solar system for a dare and the thing had taken off with him still on board. It hadn’t been the most pleasant of experiences, and he hadn’t seen much of space. He had spent the day cowering in a service shaft, far too terrified of being discovered to take a peak. He wasn’t a space person. Avon, Vila knew, had made several trips within the solar system, but Vila was sure deep space was as new to him as open, untamed nature. Dome dwellers, the both of them. “I mean, there’s not much to see most of the time, but remember that one time we went past that nebula and it lit up the whole corridor?”       

Avon nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Vila hadn’t expected any other answer. _Of course_ Avon remembered, probably more clearly than Vila did. Memory was a funny thing, tinting moments and events over time with fuzzy emotions as if they were colours. Vila’s first theft was blue – a harsh, nervous blue, like lightning, but also gentle and _right_. The readjustment sessions were hazy and hot reds, blurry splotches of pain, and Vila didn’t like remembering them at all. That moment with the nebula Vila remembered in lilac, soft violet and blue, interspersed with bright bursts of light – something to do with the actual colour of the phenomenon, no doubt, but also with the gentle, happy current of emotions he’d felt at the time. There had been moments of nervousness, certainly, but overall there was a warm fuzzy feeling, even though Vila distinctly remembered the corridor being particularly freezing that day. The only other memories that were tinted violet were whenever he opened a particularly fascinating lock, and perhaps something like that had happened that day. After all, there was nobody and nothing better guarded than his Avon.

Vila wondered whether Avon’s memories had colours – perhaps not, perhaps he didn’t allow himself to be so fanciful, but all quips aside, Avon was as human as the rest of them. Surely, Vila liked to flatter himself, his memory of that moment too was tinted.

“A credit for your thoughts, Vila,” Avon mumbled, barely moving at all except for the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“Worth something now, are they?” Vila joked, and then forged on when Avon’s expression didn’t even twitch. “Oh, I was just remembering, you know. Thinking about that nebula, and how we don’t go to see nice places nearly often enough. At least I got to see Freedom City, that’s something I suppose. And Space City, too, even if that didn’t turn out so well, though I swear I had no idea they spiked the drinks. Should have known it tasted funny.”

“Do you even remember any of that?”

“Space City? No, not really. Lots of flashing lights mostly and the sticky aftertaste of very sweet drinks.”

Avon sneered. “Probably to conceal the taste of whatever dependency they want to induce in their customers.”

“Probably,” Vila agreed. He didn’t want to run into the Terra Nostra ever again. Space City had been an experience, but he was going to stick to the truly neutral places from now on, thank you very much.

Avon shifted his weight, leaning forward to stare at where the screen met the rough floor and space seemed to drop away beneath them. “I doubt that sightseeing weighs heavily on anyone’s mind but yours. Presumably you used to sneak out of the domes as a child just to look at trees.”

“I did, actually. And climbed them, too. And I liked watching the sky, especially at night. The furthest I ever went was because I wanted to see the stars more clearly.”

“Where you ever caught?”

Vila shrugged. “Only once. After that, I never used the same door twice; made it look like a malfunction. Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Sneak out.”

“Io had no breathable atmosphere when I was a child. It was only terraformed two years ago.”

“On Earth, then?”

Avon shrugged. “Once or twice. I didn’t climb any trees.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Silence settled over them again.

Not that it was a very quiet spot, Vila thought, the roar of the engines far louder here than it was on the flight deck. He yawned and stretched out his arms along the back of the bench. There wasn’t much of a backrest, more a weird ledge or beam or whatever it was that dug uncomfortably into your back if you leant against it, but it was just broad enough to support Vila’s arms. At any rate, his comfort hadn’t really been the point.

Avon glanced back at him, scowling – though the expression melted within seconds, leaving only tiredness. Avon sighed and settled back, shifting slightly closer so Vila could settle his hand on Avon’s shoulder. Vila brushed his thumb over the perpetually tense muscles, squeezing softly. Avon, he noticed, had closed his eyes, exhaling a shaking breath.

“What was it that Blake said?” Vila asked, barely above a whisper.

Avon moved, not to pull away, but to settle some of his weight against Vila’s side, and Vila happily shuffled a little to accommodate it.

“Must we talk about Blake?”

“I don’t particularly want to, but I’d like to know what it was so I can avoid saying it. I don’t fancy being the one you’re angry with.”

The corner of Avon’s mouth twitched. “Scared, Vila?”

“What, of you? Nah. You’re all bark. I just don’t like the shouting.”

Pleased, Vila watched as the soft smirk bloomed into one of those rare honest smiles. Avon shot him a sideways glance. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said dryly, then looked back ahead at the starscape. “Blake frequently presumes to know his crew when he hasn’t even requested what is public record from Orac.”

“As you have.”

Avon smirked briefly. “Of course. Many things in the Federation’s records may be false, but they are nonetheless enlightening.”

Vila nodded. He’d considered having a look himself, but references to the Federation’s interrogation techniques made him sick, so he’d stopped himself. There were more pleasant ways for finding out about people if you knew how to ask. His curiosity had lasted so far as to discover that Avon had put any request for his records under a voice-lock.

Avon inhaled sharply, tensing, as if to prepare himself for what he was about to say. “I… reminded Blake of the unreliability of his memory, and he dared to suggest that I knew nothing of Federation interrogation techniques.”

Vila immediately resumed circling his thumb in soft, soothing motions. He remembered the moment now.

_– Forgive me if I cannot place any trust in your memory after what the Federation did!_

_– You couldn’t even imagine the lengths the Federation goes to in interrogation! Yes, they took my mind apart! They took_ me _apart and shaped me into their model citizen, but I have my memory back now – they don’t control me, Avon! But if it makes you happy, we will see what Orac has to say._

Yes, Avon’s argument had been a low blow, a sensitive spot for Blake, but he hadn’t been wrong – Blake, on the other hand, had probably not even heard Avon’s dangerously quiet _You would be surprised_. Vila wasn’t sure Blake knew why Avon had left the flight deck without another word when he had turned towards Orac – it had happened so fast that even Vila, watching from the sidelines, hadn’t remembered. He had listened to Orac’s terse pronouncements, and then, leaving Blake on the flight deck couch, had gone after Avon. And here they were.

“It brought back some memories,” Avon said at length, clearly hesitant about going into details and caught up in remembering. Vila could feel his breath hitching.

He gave Avon’s shoulder another little squeeze. “A glass of soma?”

 Avon pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not now. But feel free-”

He tried to shift out of Vila’s embrace, but Vila tightened his hold a little – not enough to keep Avon from escaping if he really wanted to, just enough to show that he didn’t want to let go. “ _I_ don’t need it.”

Avon sighed and settled down again, leaning back to share the pillow behind Vila’s head. “Do you remember them?”

“Eh? The interrogation sessions? The readjustments?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes. Don’t like to, do I? You’re not supposed to remember reprogramming, right, but it never worked right with me. If it did, they wouldn’t have had to send me to Cygnus Alpha. Never was one for violence. Just a harmless thief, me.”

Avon snorted. “Utterly harmless, indeed.”

Vila turned his head to look at Avon’s profile. He was itching to trace its lines with his fingertips, but he didn’t think the contact would be welcome, not now, not with memories like that hovering between them, so he left his right hand resting in his lap.

The interrogators hadn’t often tried physical violence with Vila – he was too sensitive to it, and there was nobody to interrogate, or to hurt, if he kept fainting. And it didn’t cure his… affliction. But knowing the Federation interrogators, they had tried everything in the book on Avon, especially the stuff that hurt but left no visible marks. There was humiliation – and danger – in coming back from interrogation into a shared cell full of criminals bearing no physical marks, and the torture had never stopped at the door of the torture chamber. Avon had never talked about himself, but Vila had seen enough in the transit cell to make a few guesses – Avon, more than any of them, had been taken away and returned time and time again in the three weeks that Vila had spent there, looking the worse for wear each time, but not the smallest trace of blood or bruise on him. And even if Avon wasn’t thinking about himself, there was Anna. Avon didn’t like to talk about her either, but he had told Vila the barest facts after they’d met Del Grant – not even that long ago.

“Physical violence didn’t get them anywhere with me,” Vila told Avon, needing to share something, not making light of it for once. “So they tried other methods. Drugs. Deprivation. Isolation.” Vila shuddered, despite himself. “Perhaps that was the worst of it. I don’t like being on my own. Or the drugs. After the second time, they started getting creative with those. It wasn’t like I hadn’t confessed. They only ever caught me red-handed, or not at all. There was nothing I could tell them in interrogation; I wasn’t political, not a rebel, not then, just a harmless thief. It was just torture, to soften me up for reprogramming. They always tried that in the end. Brought experts in for me, after the third time, but it still never stuck for more than a day or two. In the end, they just decided to ship me to Cygnus Alpha. Cally thinks I still sometimes get symptoms because of the drugs they pumped into me over the years.”

Avon wordlessly reached out his hand, settling it next to Vila’s, and watched as Vila wound their fingers together, eager for the contact. His hands felt cold, and Avon’s were at least a little warm.

“Drives you insane, dwelling on it too much. Besides, I’m a coward, aren’t I? Don’t like being scared, not even when I’m remembering things. I feel safe _now_. Safer than in years.”

“Sometimes,” Avon murmured softly, “you really do surprise me, Vila.”

“That makes it worthwhile then,” Vila shot back with a grin, shaking off his morose mood. Bouncing back, that was something he could do.

Avon, quite evidently, couldn’t manage so easily. “They didn’t try to recondition _me_ ,” he said, with a cruel twitch of his lips. “My mind was too valuable to the Federation even then. Or perhaps they thought _I_ was political and would give them the remainders of the rebellion on Earth if they tried long enough. I wasn’t, but I thought they would kill me if I didn’t collaborate.”

 _So of course you didn’t, not after Anna_. Vila tightened his grip on Avon’s hand.

“That, or try and see what would be left of my mind after they turned me into a mutoid without my consent, not that there would have been any memory left after _that_. They decided to send me to Cygnus Alpha instead. Perhaps they thought I’d change my mind in transit, after nothing else had worked – and they tried everything else. I was only with them for about a week before the trial, and for the most time, they simply let my body and mind work against me. It really would have been quite efficient, if I had had anything to tell them. They already knew about the theft, there was nothing else. I was presented with conditions for my _reintegration into society_ at the trial and told them to go to hell. After that, all else was left at the whim of the guards until the transporter arrived.”

 _Must have been a relief for you_ , Vila thought, remembering his own skyrocketing fear when the announcement had come in that it would only be a few more hours before he would leave Earth – for good, he’d thought. He had no particularly fond feelings for the planet, really, but he had known that for all that his apparent harmlessness would protect him in prison, a coward’s life would be short on Cygnus Alpha. And so, he had joined Blake, and not just because he liked him. Avon, he hadn’t really counted on then, not in his wildest dreams and hopes. Vila gently moved his thumb over Avon’s, knowing that there was nothing he could say that Avon wouldn’t brush off as unwanted pity or sentimentality.

For a few minutes, they watched the stars together, then Vila shifted, feeling tension creeping into his back, and Avon untangled their hands, moving just enough so Vila could reclaim his other arm, too.

“’s getting a bit nippy,” Vila announced, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet and pushing himself off the bench to stretch his back, “let’s go somewhere warm, eh? Have a little drink and a game of chess?”

Avon glanced at him, so obviously _inscrutable_ once more, then nodded with a slight smile. “All right. Cally will doubtlessly have my head if I don’t catch some sleep tonight.”

Vila offered his hand, and pulled Avon to his feet. He knew that Avon knew what he was doing, but it worked well between them that way. Avon liked being able to claim he was merely accommodating Vila, and Vila didn’t mind suggesting things once in a while, treading carefully when Avon was feeling emotionally vulnerable – not that Avon would ever admit to that. It did Avon good to be allowed his inscrutableness, to not be forced to assert his boundaries, and no one was more aware of those than Vila. It was quite transparent, really, if you had a knack for reading people like Avon. The trick was in figuring out which of those people realised how easy they really were to read, and to reassure those that you weren’t a danger, that they could trust you. Avon was one of those people, and Vila had, and Avon did. Vila never forgot how large a gift that trust was. Plus, Avon was inclined enough to accommodate Vila’s needs – if it was on his terms – and Vila wouldn’t dream of demanding anything else. Avon might find sex frequently boring and often inconvenient, but when he was in a good mood, he would agree to indulge Vila, and that was more than enough. But tonight, there would be none of that. Tonight, Vila wasn’t asking anything but all that Avon needed but would never request. Just a little company, a little closeness, a little warmth. Some more lilac memories to drown out the red. And some rest from the universe in general and a certain rebellion in particular.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to put a little note here regarding Vila and Avon's sex life in this universe and its relation to the recent acronym that's been floating around for consent to sexual activity, FRIES (freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, specific). The acronym is great, but complex in relation to asexuals who engage in sexual activity. Though I headcanon Avon as experiencing sexual attraction very occasionally, and as not generally averse to sex, he is mostly indifferent, and therefore "enthusiastic" doesn't really apply. Further, Avon seems to like people to think that he is indulging and tolerating Vila at best. Hence why Vila - who is really really good at reading people and situations - is constantly so cautious about making sure that Avon is consenting - and rightly so.


End file.
